17 Aug Neutralize Your Hindrances

It can feel very motivating and encouraging to clarify what you want the most, think through the most valued roles that you play during this season, and establish some meaningful, high-level goals or mission statements for each of these roles. But if you don’t pause long enough to fully consider what circumstances could potentially derail you, then you’re setting yourself up for disappointment and disillusionment.

It happens all the time: a person catches a vision of how to lose weight and build muscle tone, embraces an intensive program to do so, and goes gangbusters for a couple of weeks. Then comes an unexpected variable–an illness, an intensified work schedule, a family emergency–and they’re thrown off track and struggle to get back into the flow. Perhaps they give up, at least for now.

Substitute “how to lose weight and build muscle tone” with some other worthy accomplishment, such as “saving more for vacation,” “spending more time with friends,” “writing a book,” “painting a masterpiece,” “going back to school,” and so forth. The easy part is identifying what you truly desire. The far more difficult challenge is navigating through what has to be done, and retaining the emotional and physical energy to doggedly pursue what is worth getting done.

It won’t be the funnest activity you’ve ever completed, but consider this disciplined action step. After you write out your most valued roles and goals for each one, make a full effort to jot down potential hindrances to each of them. Think through every possible scenario regarding what could throw you off course.

Brainstorm, then, about how you might neutralize such hurdles ahead of time. What processes or systems could you enact now to minimize the chances of a hindrance? What relationships do you need to strengthen or pursue that could create powerful alliances to help you achieve your goals? What “de-cluttering” of distractions, unnecessary time-wasters, and even certain relationships needs to take place?

And the toughest question of all: What hindrances lie within you, woven into the fabric of your psychology; that self-talk and even self-condemnation that have been a thorn in your side for so many years?

Often the biggest obstacles to achieving what matters the most are internal, not external. You might be afraid to go after what you want because you’re afraid of failing. But you also might be afraid because you fear succeeding, and success necessitates change.

The latter fear is far worse. Change is scary. Change is inevitable for anything that grows and continues to live.

You’re a masterpiece, a work of art in the process of being continuously transformed, bearing elaborate hues and textured, layered subtleties of meaning and purpose. In the end, the only true hindrance to embracing your heart’s desires is you.